Got Snow?

Last week started with a slow thaw. The highs were above 40°F, but the lows were in the high teens. Buckets of sunshine burned the ice and snow from the roads. Several residents even reported going outdoors without hats. That all changed at the end of the week.

The maples ran well at the start of the week.

Due to some unfortunately timed outside events, an attrited crew collected the drips from the entire field on both Monday and Tuesday.

The snow in the woods remains deep, but the above freezing days and the cold nights have iced the paths enough to allow wheeled vehicles to roam the trees.

The 80 gallons of very sweet, cold sap the men pulled from the forest on Tuesday would be the last of the week. It got too cold, windy and cloudy for the maples to run. There was some snow, too.

The cold may have temporarily shut down syruping operations, but the sun continued improving the road conditions through Thursday.

The forecasted snow that was to prime the lake area for a somewhat deeper snow event to come, turned out to be more ice than snow. There was hope among several winter weary residents that the predicted deeper event would fizzle out, too.

The second snow event ended on Saturday morning. It had more snow than ice.

We measured over a foot and a half on the bar's deck.

Then there was the wind. Blowing at 20 to 30 mph with gusts up to 40 mph, the breezes would occasionally shake an avalanche of snow from the trees.

Overnight, the roads went from summer to January.

West Shore Drive was particularly impassable.

The stop sign at the corner of Potawatomi Trail and Lake Lucerne Drive was still mostly visible.

During clearing operations, some showed signs of fatigue when they left a little snow around the edges.

The wind swept most of the snow from the trees, leaving just the ice coating.

Our last task on Sunday was to strap on snowshoes and check the lake ice.

Under the foot of snow, slush, and water, there's 19 inches of very good ice.

Without snowshoes, getting to and from the drilling site would have taken much longer.

The tapping season is scheduled to resume next week.

The wild turkeys around the bar stayed in the woods during and just after the storm. As of late, we've gotten better at spotting them. If you look closely, there's one in this image hidden just behind a small birch.

Eventually enough stamina was found to clean up the deck a little more.

There's a door in the back of the bar that has 3 small windows in it. The bottom two have a view of snow. Out of the top one, you can see the rising drift and the snow slowly sliding off the roof. Shortly before creating this summary, the roof slid off. All you can see now out of all three windows is snow.

Well that was fun in a horrific sort of way. The snow was so deep, that many had to use skid steers and front end loaders to clear it from driveways. Had we gotten another inch or two, we could have added backhoes to that list. At this point in the season, we think that ice-out may be a little later than expected.

-Nemo's gonna get back to clearing after a little rest.

Got Snow?

March 27th through April 2nd, 2023